


Signals and Standstills

by gigantic



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-28
Updated: 2008-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-24 17:33:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3777358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gigantic/pseuds/gigantic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brendon and Pete have A Thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Signals and Standstills

Brendon's fucking Pete Wentz and it's, like, A Thing. Ryan's really jealous about it. Brendon knows because Ryan ends half of their conversations with some statement about how he doesn't even care that Brendon's fucking Pete anyway, clearly indicating that he definitely does. Brendon's thing with Pete is An Issue for Ryan, because everything in Ryan's life is divided into two categories: good things of which he approves and issues that need to be dealt with as soon as possible. 

The lead singer of his band sleeping with the A&R guy for their record label has been at the top of that second list for over two years now -- an Issue with a capital letter. It would be flattering if it wasn't annoying, but as it stands, it just means Ryan occasionally leaves pamphlets in Brendon's bunk about acceptable behavior in the workplace. Brendon keeps them all. He's read parts of some of them to Pete in bed (after, not before or during), indicating the separation between bullet points by tapping hard on Pete's naked hip.

;;

Because, okay, the amusing thing about it is that it's kind of Ryan's own fault. He sort of introduced Brendon to Pete -- figuratively.

Brendon had heard some of the music, sure. He'd heard enough to know what Spencer was talking about when he finally just asked, "But do you listen to Fall Out Boy?"

"I've heard of them," Brendon said. There was a guy in his third period that talked about their CD sometimes. He said the first really good pit he'd ever been part of happened during one of their sets. The guy had been surprised because that band was supposed to be lighter in tone. It wasn't even really hardcore or something, so he hadn't been expecting a good circle pit.

"Their lyricist -- he's the bassist," Ryan said. "Some of his lines are insane."

Ryan walked over to the racks of CDs by the television to pull a disc from the line-up. Once he brought the case over, Brendon took it in his own hands and looked at the faces on the cover. Yeah, this was the album he'd heard about.

During one of the first days that Brendon hung out with Ryan and Spencer -- after the beatboxing, after the Gollum impression -- they spent a good hour listening to _Take This To Your Grave_. The album was only forty minutes, but Ryan had favorite tracks and things he wanted to make sure Brendon really paid attention to at certain points. He'd kept saying, "Did you hear that line? Listen," whenever Spencer happened to be talking to Brendon during a lyric Ryan apparently thought was key for Brendon's growth as a human being. Parts he wanted Brendon to truly experience. He'd even used the phrase "truly experience" to drive the point home. 

So, an hour was spent on Fall Out Boy's album. It was a pretty good collection of songs, so Brendon didn't mind. He still kind of preferred _Tell All Your Friends_ , personally, but he wasn't about to say that to Ryan, because then Ryan would again try to prove to Brendon why he was wrong.

By the end of the month, Brendon had inadvertently learned most of the lyrics to Fall Out Boy's songs, and then sometime after that Ryan called and said he'd met Pete. Sort of. He'd talked to him, anyway.

"I know that," Brendon said.

"No, not -- I mean, I _talked_ to him," Ryan said, which was (as Brendon soon figured out) supposed to indicate that Ryan had interacted with Pete Wentz for real, and not simply at a meet and greet. Because Ryan had told Brendon all about the time he'd met Pete at a meet and greet too. A few times, even. A few times a _week_. "I think he's interested in us."

"Wait," Brendon said. "Wait, what?"

When Pete finally came out to see them play the three songs they had, Ryan introduced Brendon to Pete -- literally. Pete shook Brendon's hand and said to Ryan, "Dude, he's hotter than the pictures you kept sending."

"I chose the ones where his personality came through," Ryan said, and Brendon felt weird because he was still shaking Pete's hand while he and Ryan shared a laugh about something from which Brendon felt excluded. He chuckled anyway, and when Pete looked back at him, smiling, it wasn't fate, it was just funny.

That is, until they slept together. After that, it became sort of hilarious, considering.

;;

So Brendon has a Thing, and Ryan has an Issue with it. Brendon refuses to feel guilty.

The only part he feels marginally bad about is the fact that Pete generally still talks to Ryan via IM the most. Their situation -- Brendon and Pete's -- it's not a _relationship_. Ryan is probably still a better friend to Pete or something, if they're going to play that game, so he sends Pete about fifteen hundred text messages a day. That part isn't the problem so much as sometimes, in the middle of their conversations, Ryan has to look up from his Sidekick to say, "Pete wants to know if you want to meet him earlier. Or are you just gonna show up with the rest of us?"

"Um," Brendon says, weighing his options as he pulls on his shoe. "Do they have hotel rooms already?"

"I don't know," Ryan says, and then goes back to his Sidekick again, thumbs tapping out another message. After a moment he says, "They checked in this morning."

"Does he want to come pick me up?"

After more typing, Ryan says, "Just drive your car. Leave yours at the hotel and ride with him to -- "

"Does that mean he wants me to leave right now?"

"--no, that -- look, ask him yourself," Ryan says, cutting the line of questioning altogether. "Get on your on phone and talk to him. I'm not the, like, booty call travel agent, coordinator, or whatever."

Brendon can't suppress his laughter, falling back on Ryan's bed as he apologizes through giggles. It's unfair to make Ryan the go-between, he knows. He shouldn't rub it Ryan's face and exacerbate the Issue, but sometimes that's just how it works out.

;;

Brendon didn't sleep with Pete the first time Pete came to Vegas. They didn't even sleep together when Brendon went to Los Angeles to record vocals on Cork Tree. In all honesty, Brendon had kind of thought Ryan had it bad for Pete for a while, and maybe he had, but then Ryan was suddenly spending all his time stalking Jac on his livejournal, so Brendon decided the Pete Wentz thing was more the object of Ryan's hero worship. Possibly.

"How do you know if you want to have sex with somebody or if you just want to be somebody?" Brendon asked, and Ryan looked around from his computer.

He said, "Um."

"It's not about me, I swear. It's a friend of mine," Brendon said, and he didn't realize how much more suspicious that sounded until it was already out of his mouth. Ryan raised an eyebrow.

He still answered the question, though, saying, "Maybe it's both. I read this book once -- sometimes the person can't figure it out either, because it's a little of everything."

"Huh," Brendon said, and because of that short conversation he'd decided to give Ryan more space and time to figure out what he wanted.

;;

"You gotta stop using Ryan to set up details with me," Brendon says, standing up on the bed. He's still stark naked. He sort of wants to go jump on a trampoline right now. Completely naked. If they were at Pete's house, they might be able to make that happen, but for now Brendon bounces on the mattress a little, feet on either side of Pete's thighs. "He got irritated today."

"Really?" Pete asks, half-smiling in amusement. "Sorry, I didn't even think to -- "

"Yeah, I know, me neither," Brendon says. "I mean, Jon never makes it a big deal. Ryan's just kind of -- he already thinks this is not a great idea."

"What, he says this to you?" Pete asks. "Even though it's been two, almost three years."

"That's what I keep saying!" Brendon agrees. He drops down onto his knees again carefully, hover over Pete's body. "He's never told you he thinks it's a bad move?"

Pete shakes his head and shrugs. "I guess I kind of am his boss."

Brendon snorts. "You're Pete -- you, I mean. You know. You talk to him every other day is what I'm saying. How are there things he doesn't talk to you about?"

"We're not a couple, dude," Pete says, bringing his hands to Brendon's hips and holding him steady.

Brendon says, "Clearly," jerking his hips forward suggestively. It's been a few minutes, hasn't it? They can go round two.

"Hey, can you put, like," Pete asks, gesturing around his neck and grinning. "Can you -- you know in porn where there's always that one guy or girl who can put their legs behind their head to fuck?"

Oh, yeah. Yeah, Brendon's seen that. He says, "I have, but I can't. I've never tried; I don't think I'm that flexible."

"Well, I mean, there's only one way to find out," Pete says, and once he yanks Brendon's pants off his feet finally, he tosses them aside. "You want to see?"

;;

Brendon's Issue -- and he's had the same one his whole life -- is that the one thing he tells himself he can't have is the thing he starts to pay the most attention to in the end. It happens every time.

On tour, Brendon had hung out with Patrick the most for two reasons: 1) Patrick had really great opinions about music, including Queen, and 2) Patrick had really great opinions about plenty of things that weren't music, too. He made Brendon laugh. So they spent a lot of time hanging out, joking around, and randomly riffing on songs together. One thing Brendon _hadn't_ been doing purposely was to try picking Patrick's brain for information about the guy's best friend, it was just sort of coincidental that after talking about music, they somehow ended up on the subject of Pete. Every time.

"Wait, so did he still have the dreads when you met him?" Brendon asked, holding his stomach as if that would staunch his urge to laugh.

"Nope, I'd missed those," Patrick said, smiling sort of wistfully. "He just had the short hair, and his pants were too big, which is pretty funny."

"Yeah, you can't even get a finger in those things now," Brendon said, and then he shut up, because God, wow. Not that he had a whole lot of experience _trying_ to get his fingers into Pete's pants, except for the one time -- two times, okay, but he didn't need to broadcast that to Patrick or anything. Patrick probably didn't want to know.

"Yeah," Patrick said, with the same half-amused smile playing across his face, and Brendon breathed a small sigh of relief. Maybe Patrick had somehow not noticed that Brendon's pulse started racing a bit there, nervous that maybe it was plastered all over his face suddenly: Brendon had had sex with Pete, technically twice, and he would technically not mind a third encounter, but it wasn't because he was _into_ Pete or anything. Anyway, Ryan wasn't dating Jac anymore, so who knew if he would get a clue and decide he'd like to be the one wriggling his fingers into Pete's jeans or something --

"Brendon."

"Huh?" Brendon said, and then he tuned back into the conversation to see Patrick watching him, amusement turned on to Brendon now. "Oh, sorry, I was just. I was thinking, um. You listen to, um. Like, B.B. King, yeah?"

They started the conversation up again, brand new subject, and Brendon had figured it was probably a good idea to stick to debating about music.

;;

Brendon, it turns out, can't put his legs behind his head. He suspected as much and had tried to warn Pete, who kisses the side of Brendon's nose and reiterates that nothing beats a failure but a try once Brendon does, in fact, fail. Brendon does at least come pretty close, which is something he brags about later, telling Spencer as soon as he gets back to the bus. Spencer curls his mouth in a seemingly displeased fashion.

"Ugh, what?" he says.

"Like a contortionist, I swear," Brendon says, and he wraps his arms around himself to visually describe what he means. "We could put me in the suitcase on our next tour."

"You can't sing inside a suitcase. The sound would be all weird," Ryan says, and Brendon takes a moment to consider this.

He says, "Okay, fine, then we won't put me in the suitcase. Whatever. Oh, Pete said call him, by the way."

"Huh," Ryan says, and that's probably code for a paragraph's worth of disapproval. Ryan has perfected this technique where he doesn't speak up and tell Brendon that he disapproves of what Brendon does, he just breathes and chews his cereal or sips from his Motts Apple Juicebox in a very calculated manner. The funny thing is Ryan thinks he's taking the high road, but Brendon thinks it's just really fucking childish.

;;

Wait, back up, back up. Something's been skipped:

The prelude to the first time Brendon and Pete slept together came something like a year before. No, really. 

Pete had decided he was going to sell his house and move back to Chicago, but there was no sense in leaving Los Angeles without even a _little_ fanfare. That's how he told it to them, anyway, inviting the whole band over for another night of indoor hijinks. They covered a nice chunk of Pete's movie collection, and then drank all of his Dr. Pepper, and Spencer kept saying to Brendon that Pete was definitely just trying to butter them up so that they'd help him pack.

Brendon didn't mind. Anything that gave him an opportunity to take time away from his lame hourly job and his lame school. Hell, if Pete had explicitly said he was only inviting them over to do heavy lifting, it still would've been a break from those two things. Brendon had just been glad to be in LA again. He was energized and happy, bumping around in Pete's house. By 3AM, when the others started to nod off, he was still wired, talking to Ryan about the Chia Pet commercial that _had_ to be at least fifteen years old playing on the TV screen until Ryan snored once, and Brendon realized he'd lost everyone.

Pete had been watching television, too, but Brendon wasn't sure when he disappeared. He rose from where he sat, leaving Ryan asleep as he moved through the house, sliding his knuckles against the walls. When he reached Pete's room, the door was cracked, and Brendon knocked lightly before pushing it open and stepping inside.

Pete looked over, not startled but tipping his head to the side as if waiting for whatever Brendon might say. "Hey."

"Hi," Brendon said, and he cleared his throat when the sound came out almost as a whisper. "Were you sleeping? Ryan kind of dozed off on me."

Smiling then, Pete said, "No, I just had a phone call and then got caught up. I, um. It's whatever. Anyway, I didn't meant to bail. I can stay up with you."

"You're sure it's not past your bedtime?"

"Says the dude who regularly had an actual fucking lights out a few months ago," Pete said, shifting aside on the bed as if there wasn't already a wealth of space.

Brendon waved his hand. He said, "Why dwell in the past when the present seems so promising?"

Pete laughed. "What the the hell are you talking about?"

" _Me_ ," Brendon said. He climbed onto the mattress, and it had been looming over Pete in that instant that shocked Brendon into a sudden quiet moment. He thought, _hold on_ , hesitating until Pete knocked his leg into Brendon's, jolting him back into real time.

What it was: Brendon had thought about Ryan on the couch, and he wondered even as he and Pete laughed about nothing if it was supposed to be the other way around. For the most part, Pete was just Pete anymore, but he was still the guy Ryan had been into first, the guy he had quoted early on, the guy he had told Brendon might change things for them if they were serious about music -- are you serious, Brendon? Are you sure you're in, because you can't back out now. Brendon thought, _hold on, Ryan should be here_ one second and then _I want to be here_ the next, and it was all the indecision that made him topple, really.

Brendon kissed Pete Wentz because he needed to stop thinking.

Brendon kept kissing Pete Wentz because Pete kissed him back.

;;

What's _worse_ is that the next time Brendon talks to Pete, he blindsides Brendon in the middle of their conversation. 

Brendon says, "So, yeah, Ryan -- "

"He told me that writing's been slower though," Pete interrupts, finishing the sentence with his own tangential thought.

"What does that mean?" Brendon asks, snorting. It's always something with Ryan lately. Brendon isn't surprised, but he can't imagine what Ryan might've been talking about.

Pete hums a little, saying, "Mm, you know. I don't know. He said things were kind of unfocused -- the songwriting is. There are some... distractions is how he put it."

That, Brendon thinks, is a lot of bullshit. They aren't moving unusually slow. They're experimenting as a band. It takes some time. He says, "I would disagree, dude. I think it's going -- "

"Well, I'm just like," Pete says, cutting him short again. "It's one thing if Ryan's complaining, but it's another if the complaints aren't unfounded. We don't want problems while you're writing, you know?"

 _There are none_ , Brendon thinks. He feels like a whiny toddler without even saying anything, biting back the urge to repeat "is not, is not" until he's got the upper hand again. He can't even figure out exactly what he's angry about suddenly, leg bouncing restlessly, he just knows he's _annoyed_ now, because this isn't what he wants to hear from Pete. 

He maintains as neutral a tone as possible until Pete has to get off the phone for other business. He tells Brendon they can talk about it more later, maybe. It depends on their schedules, and Brendon's jaw has clenched tighter than he realized, his mouth barely moving as he says goodbye. 

Brendon's going to throttle Ryan. 

At first he intends to wait until he can get to Ryan's house. He wants to wait until he can choke the guy to death for real, but as he's nearing Ryan's house, his fingers pick up his phone and dial the number early. The call goes through to voicemail, so Brendon ends the connection and dials again. Ryan picks up the second time, and he clears his throat before speaking.

"I was just thinking about calling you," he says, pleasant. "I'm writing this thing, and I think it could be --"

"Hey, that's great, Ryan," Brendon says, completely disregarding whatever Ryan's saying, "but what I want to know is what you told Pete."

"What I told -- Brendon, are you listening? I'm writing a song," Ryan says, and Brendon hates when he does that. He hates when Ryan attempts to conveniently shut down whatever he doesn't want to deal with by not addressing it. 

"Here's my problem," Brendon says. He can be just as ridiculous if a situation warrants it. "Here's my thing: I waited. I wasn't biding my time or anything, but I waited a _while_. And after two years, you'd think you would _realize_ that we have it under control."

"What are you talking about?" Ryan asks, and Brendon wants to shake him. Of course he knows what they're talking about here.

"I'm talking about," he starts, but Brendon cuts himself short as his voice rises. He's feeling frantic. "Nothing, I'm around the corner from your area. Be outside."

He hangs up his phone. Ryan's in a gated community, but unluckily for him, Brendon knows the code. Ryan's waiting outside of his place when Brendon pulls up and parks. He turns off his car, gets out, and thinks about how to approach the situation with finesse, but that seems like it'd take too long. Fuck it. Fuck it, Brendon's been waiting for this conversation forever.

Ryan simply eyes him, as if waiting to figure out Brendon's angle. "So, you, uh. Um?"

The best (worst?) way to handle this, Brendon decides, is to come out and say, "What I can't figure out is why you'd wait this long to decide you'd rather be fucking him."

Brendon has never claimed to be the smoothest in confrontation. 

"Whoa -- whoa," Ryan says, still frustratingly cool even when unsettled. "I'd rather be -- are you talking about Pete? Is that what you think? You think I'm trying break you up?"

Brendon's fucking Pete Wentz, and Ryan has an Issue with it, because it's A Thing and not the kind of Thing Ryan can get behind. It's something that doesn't involve him. Brendon doesn't know what else it could be.

But rather than give so much away, Brendon just says, "What's to break up, dude?" 

He leans against the side of the car, folding his arms and squinting. He and Pete aren't serious. They never have been. That isn't how they work. Maybe it should've been how Ryan and Pete worked, and Brendon's been overstaying his welcome in territory that's never really been his. It's fucked up that Ryan's doing something about it so late in the game, but as upset as he is, Brendon can't really blame him if that's how this all shakes out either. A huge part of him wishes he could though.

Brendon says, "That isn't our thing."

" _That_ 's what I'm talking about," Ryan says, pointing at Brendon. "That. What does that even mean: it's not your thing?"

"It's called a casual fucking relationship," Brendon snaps back, and then laughs. It's harsh, mean. "A casual relationship involves a lot of fucking, even, Ryan. Look it up."

Ryan shakes his head. He says, "Yeah, I'm familiar with the concept, Brendon. I got the memo, and I think there's something in it about how many times you can drop everything for somebody in two years before it stops being a 'no strings' deal."

"Right, because I'm the one who's spent most of that time talking to him on my Sidekick every single day."

"No," Ryan says, "but you're the guy who came all the way over here because he thinks one of his best fucking friends is trying sabotage his _casual_ relationship."

"I'm not --" Brendon tries to say, except he is. He's definitely that guy. Motherfucking fuck.

He hates Ryan so much.

;;

They could have slept together that night in Pete's bedroom. Brendon could have easily let Pete turn him over, press him into the mattress or coax him onto his stomach, and Brendon would have obliged. Full of nerves and heady excitement, he would've let Pete fuck him while everybody slept, silently wishing that Ryan not wake up and decide to wander to find out where everyone had gone.

They could've then, but they didn't, Pete pushing Brendon away gently. The two of them stared at the ceiling, breathing harshly. It hadn't been as awkward as it probably should've been, but Brendon still went to bed half-embarrassed and disappointed.

Instead they didn't revisit familiar territory until over twelve months later. By then Brendon hadn't been a naive seventeen anymore, and he wasn't a virgin. They were back in Los Angeles, but Pete didn't live there, so they found themselves in his hotel room after a show while others were still out celebrating. The sex wasn't sweet nor was it unkind, just this side of too frantic as Brendon stumbled over his pants, trying to shake them off, and Pete laughed as he stepped back to drag his shirt over his head.

Brendon hadn't been new to sex, but he'd still been in unfamiliar territory, asking Pete to slow -- slow down through gritted teeth. He bit the heel of Pete's hand at one point, muffling his own whimpers as everything smoothed out and Brendon felt more than just the stretch, felt _good_. He bowed his head, grunting, and it was like detonating whatever had been building in his belly when Pete touched his cock, pulling Brendon over the edge in short quick tugs. Brendon's skin flashed hot, arms weakening, and behind him, Pete laughed breathlessly as Brendon chanted _yesyes yes_.

;;

And, hey, fuck Ryan Ross and the horse he rode in on, because when Brendon says, "So, it turns out that Ryan just thinks I'm in love with you," he's about eighty-eight percent sure it's a lie that he tells Pete he's exactly right after he responds, "And you think you're not."

What Brendon thinks is that he isn't cut out for these kind of conversations. He and Pete have -- had -- a note perfect arrangement, and now a lot of what's going on in Brendon's head feels messy. Forget what all the popular stories lead people to believe; it isn't sex that complicates things.

"I think you should've just hooked up with Ryan."

"What?" 

"Nothing," Brendon says. Through the phone line, Pete sounds both too close and too far away. "Maybe you were right earlier, about the distraction. Maybe it's a good idea to go for distance, or."

"Wait, you're serious?" Pete asks, the tone of his voice changing, lowering. He begins to question Brendon again, but then he exhales and sounds hardly above a whisper. "Oh, shit."

"More or less." Brendon laughs quietly, because it is sort of amusing after all. Just when he thought he had a clue, Brendon's pushed back three spaces, feeling too young and out of sorts again. He's more nervous now than he ever was back then though.

Pete asks, "And you just want to stop."

What, is Pete in shock and thus incapable of comprehension? Brendon taps his knee impatiently, trying not to do something incriminating like hang up impulsively because he'd rather just not discuss this. With a calculated calm, he says, "I mean, I thought that you would want -- "

"I want to come out there," Pete says, and that's something else they're going to need to talk about. Brendon would like to be to be finish a sentence or two every now and -- wait.

"Excuse me?"

Pete laughs. "Stop moping for a minute, dude. I said I want to see you."

It's almost absurd how quickly Brendon feels something lift inside him. A brand new anxiousness unfolds, soft and light.

He asks, "Are you kidding?"

"Do you only speak in questions now? Yes. I'm not done yet, asshole," he says, his voice bumped up a few notes again, sincere and promising.

;;

Here's what Brendon forgot:

Pete's Issue is that he either has to accept all of the blame or take none of it, so the morning after they slept together the first time, Brendon had pretty much woken up a couple hours later to Pete giving a speech. He explained that he wasn't trying to make them a dirty secret or anything, but it might be better not to talk about it. If it came up, though, that was fine, too, because it wasn't like they would be doing it again, right? It was mostly for Brendon's sake, because he could understand if Brendon was feeling strange, but Pete promised that it didn't have to be -- _he_ wouldn't be weird about it, anyway.

"And, like. Okay, I know I sound like a fucking douchebag going all 'about business' all of a sudden," Pete tells him, "but if you're worried about the band or anything. Nothing changes. I don't know if you were worried about -- for whatever reason, but I'm not gonna --"

"The band? I don't," Brendon said, rubbing his eyes and sitting up. "Hold on, what if I -- "

"Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that you're not sketched out, or --

" _Pete_ ," Brendon said, stressing his name to get Pete to pause. Sleepily, he asked, "What if I want to say I had fun?"

"You... had fun," Pete repeated, voice flat. He narrowed his eyes at Brendon, surveying him.

Brendon laughed. "Yeah. Sorry to break it to you, but I just want to tell you I thought it was awesome."

A couple eerily still moments later, Pete broke into laughter, face splitting in a goofy grin. He kept giggling, Brendon joining in until it felt more appropriate to lean forward, aiming for Pete's mouth. Pete murmured "Awesome" into the kiss, gasping as Brendon crawled over his thighs like the word meant something bigger, like it was the right answer, and then it had gotten lost too soon in another shallow breath, the beginning of something mutual.


End file.
